viz. the beautiful virgin credit is much oftener seen there. Being requested by several friends in England to send home a true and faithful description of an Oriental ball (that is of course a European dance in the East, for the Rajah's cause the ladies to dance for them) I sent home as follows, which gained much commendation from the home critics. About half-past 9 P. M. (I love to be particular) the carriages, bullock coaches, palanquins, and Tonjons arrived, out of which stepped on mats composed of cocoanut fibres, an array of beauty and talent seldom equalled; when the fair came tripping into the room "laughing they knew not why" they immediately advanced and shook hands with the host and hostess, then sat down and discussed topics with their beaux of intense interest, such as the approaching monsoon, and promotion; this was the order of the evening until the whole of the guests were assembled. Partners having been engaged some five or six deep before even the ball was seriously thought of, many young men appeared sorely disappointed, after accosting some delicate fair with the usual interrogative of, "Would she be so condescending as to honour Jack, or Tom or Bill with her hand in the next dance, if she was not engaged;" I was grieved to see so many fine young men re fused. It immediately struck me their case was not unlike that of Psyche's of whom I had been reading in Burton "many mortal men came to see fair Psyche, the glory of her age; they did admire her, commend, desire her for her divine beauty, and gaze upon her, but none would mar ry her. Fair Psyche had no money.” The Ladies in the Ball Room in India are in general reserved, and afraid of dancing more than once with the same partner, for you know licenses and true lover's knots are very dangerous things, and not easily untied when once fastened, but I am running away from dancing to marrying, surely there must be some natural affinity betwixt them. The gentlemen here dance in a military manner not unlike the movement of an animated pace stick, if you can conceive such a thing, the ladies are elegant and graceful in their movements, and "use all gently," they are continually giving orders for the Ball Room Guide, by the overland mails. Some young men were present who on no account whatever would convert themselves into spinning tops, but I afterwards discovered they were men of sentiment which accounted for it. Supper was announced at half past 11, but allow me to wind up with a quotation from a well known work on the Society of India; "The supper passed off as ball suppers usually do. A band from one of Her Majesty's Corps gave delightful music, and at intervals such of the Company as were Orators took the occasion to make the display before a Company, disposed to hear and receive all with plaudits, laughter, and good humour." When the supper was concluded, dancing was resumed until gunfire or 5 A. M.; when the company separated, the ladies to fall asleep in the bullock coaches, &c. and the gentlemen to smoke cheroots. I could hear one of the gallants singing as he left the Ball Room, "O'tis sweet to think that where'er we rove;" Well now what do you think of our Almack's in India? adieu. Thursday, December 28, 1843. POLYPHILUS. "O, it offends me to the soul, to hear a rebustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings." HAMLET TO THE PLAYERS. Perhaps there is no amusement which tends to such a degree to break the spell of monotony, as an amateur theatrical entertainment; as soon as such an exhibition is rumoured throughout a cantonment, the youthful imagination pictures to itself an approaching field for the display of those talents which have so long lain dormant, now the youth in the capacity of an officer and a gentleman is to assume the character of a brigand, a romantic moon-struck lover and a clown, without any salaries to settle, any wives or children to provide for, none of these disturb the willing performance of the gentleman amateur, and what a good effect, an amateur performance produces in society; an eminent essayist tells us "How many fine gentlemen do we owe to the stage? How many romantic lovers are mere Romeos in Masquerade? How many soft bosoms have heaved with Juliet's sighs? They teach us when to laugh and when to weep, when to love and when to hate, upon principle, and with a good grace!" The gentleman amateur is an extraordinary animal, he wishes to gain the approbation of the audience, not so much by the excellence of his memory as by the studied grace and elegance of his movements, he wishes the fair when they leave the theatre, to exclaim, "Dear me, what a very handsome young man that was who played Captain Absolute, I wonder if he is engaged." Several times I have visited the scene I am about to describe and have stood "both before and behind the curtain," so I am able to give as good a description as Mr. Bunn of Drury Lane; the night I shall single out-was one on which the "Rivals," and "The way to get Married" were acted, both of which dramas are frequently performed with bad and good success daily upon the great stage of life. The theatre was decidedly handsome, and the audience brilliant, in jewels at least if not in any thing else, out of many prologues sent in by would-be-poets, to the manager, the following was delivered which is decidedly clever in its way; I thought at first it was one of Garrick's, but I now can swear to the originality of it. PROLOGUE. Well then at length the promised hour has come, |